Before you choose one, think wisely who this person is, and what they have accomplished? Have they achieved where you want to be? No one can teach you how to be more than they are themselves. Their ceiling, is your ceiling.
I urge women not to look for mentors, but more importantly to find champions. There can be a tendency for the word mentor to sound like taking someone under your wing. I am a naturally action-oriented person who feels there is far too much coddling in the world and too little doing. So I urge you to find champions because champions are people who make sh*t happen for themselves.
Find a person who doesn’t quit. Find that person who doesn’t take No for an answer. Find the one who moves forward despite what others think. Find that person who does not back down. When you find her, don’t twist her arm into mentoring you. If she is as focused and single minded as she needs to be to succeed, she will politely say No.
Instead, stay close and pay attention to what she is doing. Respectfully keep enough distance to not get in her way, but watch her focus, her drive, her moves.
If you still need someone to hold your hand, know that this is not the work for a champion. A winner cannot win with others latched on.
If you are serious about success, hire and pay for a coach. They are trained to guide you along, but not be your crutch. Study winners, champions and doers. Emulate them, live and breathe like them. But don’t make your progress dependent on their ability to guide you along, and never expect someone to be responsible for you. That is not their job, it is always yours.
In life, there are winners and there are losers. The difference is simple. Winners are single minded, focused, determined to get what they want. They make their success dependent solely on themselves. Sure they study others, ask for advice, and take it only from the best. But they make themselves solely responsible for achieving what they want.
There are others who have a goal, and would much appreciate success, but don’t want to do it alone. They spend time looking for someone to advise them, guide them, inspire them, preferably join a club of others who too, don’t want to do it on their own. They would very much like it, if someone would be kind enough to lead them to success, show them how its done, cry with them when it isn’t working, share their failures. We all fail, that is a fact of life. But how we get up and move on, separates the champions from the wannabes.
When we fail, some of us get back up, reformulate our action plans, and try again. Others grab onto someone else’s hand, look around to see if a hug will be offered to them, if someone will commiserate with them, rehash their pains and analyze their failures, only to look again towards others for that encouragement they need to try again. Which category do you fall into?
The reason I encourage you to find a champion rather than a mentor is that there is a difference in mentality between someone who is looking toward others, and someone fully prepared to do it on her own. A mentee will always be looking for guidance, a champion will take action all by herself.
The Goddess Principles 